Nvm kassapa Buddha . Maybe you are missing something , my meaning is Mat’s life and Mr Bean’s life is separate from each other . Not only on conventional level , that Mat’s family and money in the bank account belongs to himself , each person memory, behaviour and character different from each other , even realisation of each individual at the end of the day which is arahathood and Buddhahood , shall be referred to each person not otherwise .
If there’s a state called Nibbana even after Parinibbana , whom do you think shall one pointing to the state attained ? Mat’s or Mr Bean ? Why ?
Yes I can try and explain a bit better. In every person there a changing of phenomena. This means technically it’s a new person every moment. However there’s a flowing in-side that same stream or process. It maintains its boundaries from a similar ‘person’.
Ultimately what’s there cannot be called a being but better understood as an illusion.
If by this you mean that the knowing quality of mind is unable to know knowing - and defining ‘self’ as this knowing - then yes, this is what I was suggesting. I am trying to stay with the OP’s request: …If anyone believes there might be a self hiding somewhere, that the human is not as selfless as a computer, etc. - then present your arguments…
I don’t actually take a side in this self/no-self argument. I was trying to point out the importance of pinning down this term ‘self’ before talking about it’s existence or lack of – and the above was offered as one possible definition.
That which reaches the unconditioned sees “not-self”.
As I mentioned to dxm, you first need to clarify what you mean by ‘self’. In my view, the unconditioned is more like consciousness that is conscious of no longer being impacted/pulled-around by conditions. I would agree that ‘that which reaches the unconditioned’ sees that that which was once seen as self is not self. Self here referring to the sense that body, feelings, beliefs constitute what I am.
If you are defining a person as a static state of beliefs, feelings, intentions, etc. then yes but I don’t think anyone thinks in these terms. We see ourselves as being a sense of continuity that runs through all these different experiences – that which knows them subjectively. Perhaps I misunderstand your meaning of the snake analogy but I think the vast majority of people have no memory of most of their lives – just little snippets here and there – what seems to link them together is this sense of subjective experience of that memory. And interestingly this subjective continuity of experience even holds true for past life memories, out of body experiences, lucid dreams, and false memories. And this is not illusory – at least in the sense of being the result of ignorance. Clearly an Arahant also has a sense of continuity of experience. It is just that the sense or source of this continuity is no longer experienced as located in phenomena.
